on a high wire
by likeglory
Summary: When Jemma lays eyes on her, for the very first time, she freezes—and promptly decides that the woman is absolutely terrifying.


**A/N:** originally posted on ao3. thank you Heaven for being my beta reader. **there may or may not be a sequel to this. if there is, it will be posted a second chapter.**

* * *

><p>Going undercover is nothing like Jemma imagined it to be.<p>

There's no gunfire when she walks in through the swinging glass doors. Nobody is screaming out in agony or bleeding out on the floor of the hallways. In fact, it's very similar to SHIELD: people in lab coats racing down the hallways with either glass cases or folders stacked high in their arms, men and women in their neat, clean suits crowding the elevator, and what seem to be tech analysts and lab assistants darting from room to room, floor to floor, all of them with some place to be.

She waits for her I.D. to be cleared, so she can meet with a man called Bakshi, as well as HYDRA's head of security. While she sits, the surface she's scraped reminds her of SHIELD, reminds her of what _once_ was SHIELD. But the heavily armed and armored guards standing near the main exits—along with the people she passed in the hall on her way down to the third level below ground—remind her of the situation at hand.

She tries to breathe in slow and deep, through her nose, just like May and Coulson told her to do before she left, but all she can think about is _what if I die_ and _how am I going to lie to these dreadful people_ until someone calls her name. She ends up having to hold the air inside her lungs to keep from spontaneously combusting because of the immense, physical pressure that sits on her chest, trying to squeeze the oxygen from her body.

Her lungs feel like bursting, but she does not allow herself to lose her composure.

* * *

><p>The interview goes well—if she can call it that. If <em>they're<em> going to call it an interview, then it's an interview as to whether they decide to cut her into itty bitty pieces or graciously spare her life so she might prove useful to them, and if she's not, well, _then_ they'll cut her to pieces.

They ask her all about where her loyalties lie—_not with SHIELD, no, not at all_—about her PhD's—_yes, I have two_—if she knows anything about the remnants of SHIELD and who its director is—_of course not, I left because the director is dead and the organization is in ruins—_and a few other questions that have her wanting to squirm in her seat and gouge her eyes out with a stapler. She makes it through without losing an oculus.

The only time she falters is when they ask her about _Dr. Leopold Fitz_, because she hesitates. Bakshi and the woman in the suit beside him notice it. She covers it up, though, with a truth; for all lies start in truths, or something like that.

She wants to say _don't call him Leopold_, she wants to tell them a lot of things, but she ends up saying _he suffered permanent brain damage from oxygen deprivation_ and something else that make the thin veils of suspicion slide from their expressions and she almost breathes out a sigh of relief before she catches herself. Any little tick can catch their attention, and she wants to get out of this in one piece.

She makes it out of the room, only to meet the head of security waiting for her directly outside the office door. She nearly collides with her—but instead, she saves herself by stumbling and catching herself on the wall.

When Jemma lays eyes on her, for the very first time, she freezes—and promptly decides that the woman is absolutely _terrifying_.

* * *

><p><em>Their<em> interview does not go so smooth.

The woman is _tall_, she's so incredibly _tall_ and frightening. It shows in the rigidness in her spine, the cool, collective calm in her sharp eyes, the concrete set of her shoulders, the disdainful curl of her glossed lips. She is menacing, and she asks the worst sort of questions.

She asks questions that Bakshi and the woman Jemma can't recall the name of had asked her, and then she asks other questions. Questions about being a temporary agent in the field, about Skye and Fitz and May and the team, (and oh, how her heart aches), about where her loyalties _truly _lie.

Apparently _because I go where the science goes_ is not a good enough answer for _why did you become a part of HYDRA_.

And that, in all honesty, is quite offensive in and of itself, because the woman has her credentials out in front of her on the pad in her hands. She most _certainly_ should already know that Jemma Simmons is a _scientist_. It has always been her passion, her _thing_, as Coulson once put it—one that she and Fitz share, despite the difference in their fields—and even to a head of security in HYDRA that should be _discernible_.

The scientist is prepared to open her mouth and defend what she's been devoted to all her life and her mostly-truthful-truths to the grave, but then there's a shrill beeping sound filling the office, and the woman is grabbing her by the arm and yanking her down onto the ground. She's speaking into what presumably must be her com in a low, urgent voice that triggers the urge to run, to run as fast as she possibly can, to safety, and possibly, to the team.

(_It's __Ward's fault_, Jemma thinks.)

But she can't run. She stays hunched down behind the chair she'd previously been twiddling her thumbs in, hiding her shaking fingers by clutching at the fabric of her shirt and keeping her pulse from beating its way out of her ribcage by taking deep, slow breaths through her nose—like May and Coulson said to. Like Skye _wouldn't_ have done, because Skye would have (most likely) gone her own way.

"What's going on?" Jemma asks, quieting her voice to a hush. She hears shouting from outside the door.

"There's been a breech," the woman replies. The look on her face is very much like the one Coulson gets when he wants to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose when Grant and Skye have—oh god, _Skye and the team and Ward and_—

"You stay here," she hisses, before straightening up, "we'll continue this at a later date."

* * *

><p>The most wonderful thing happens:<p>

They don't.

* * *

><p>Jemma is easily accepted into the ranks of the scientists in Sub-Level One. What she <em>wants<em> is to be working above the ground floor; not just because of escape plans and all that, but for the fact that the more important people Coulson wantes her to acquire information on are also on the ground floor, and above that.

No one she knows from SHIELD is there—which is a relief, because, _surely_, if there were anyone who did, she would surely be shot, or worse. Because everyone who knew Jemma—back before HYDRA revealed itself—they knew that she was the most terrible liar anyone had the pleasure of meeting.

But then the head of security—there's no name to match the face, it's just _head of security_—apparently starts doing _random security checks_ around the same time she begins working in the labs with one Dr. Tully, a middle aged woman with a tendency to mutter under her breath.

This makes Jemma feel like the head of security on to her.

It's possibly the worst thing that could've happened, but no one's looked through her things yet. She hasn't been shot or killed or worse, so she thinks that it's going to be all right.

It has to be. She can do this. She's perfectly capable of gathering intel, sending it back to Coulson, and keeping it together long enough for her to walk away from this mission on her own two feet and not, God forbid, a body bag that will be tossed into a river or incinerator or somewhere just as horrid.

Yes. She is _perfectly _capable of doing her job.

* * *

><p>The head of security makes her rounds at least once every two weeks. Jemma will have her eyes glued to something under one of the most spectacular microscopes she's ever had the pleasure of using, taking notes at rapid fire that Dr. Tully <em>should<em> be taking on what she's seeing because _it's brilliant, Dr. Tully, simply brilliant_, and then they'll announce a _random_ security check.

She might nearly drop something: a slide, a clipboard, her cluttered bunch of notes that she keeps far too close to the edge of her desk, maybe her piping hot tea—the kind Fitz always knew she liked when she came down with the flu during their winters in the United States because her mum and dad never let her get the stuff at home.

The woman _always_ checks her desk. She could be last, she could be first, but every single time, she stalks by, gives Jemma a look that makes her want to squirm where she stands as the woman rifles through her things. And when she leaves, she never looks satisfied. She looks like she lost something, something her superiors will have her head for if she doesn't find it. And she seems to always think that _Jemma_ has it.

Jemma probably _is_ it. Jemma is a mole: she's undercover, she's hiding in plain sight. She's going to try and climb her way up the figurative ladder, as far and for as long as she can, to get what Coulson needs, because they need her back at the base, Fitz and Trip and_ Skye—_

At the end of the week, she lets a sigh of relief ease from her chest when she exits the facility and starts toward home. With each day that passes her by, the security checks get a lot less frequent, but instead of happening towards the middle of her workday, they usually start as soon as she gets there, or right before she leaves.

They delay her getting to work, getting _results_, and they delay her departure.

It's downright infuriating.

* * *

><p>Two months drag by.<p>

By now, Jemma has managed to keep some sort of routine. She gets takeout practically every night that she can, which is every night, because the empty fridge reminds her of her empty home, and it feels wrong. It feels wrong because everything else in that place feels wrong, so terribly, terribly wrong, and she hates it. Utterly. Without a doubt.

Dr. Tully has been replaced by one Dr. Tyson. Dr. Tyson does not speak. He does not even appear to breathe. He just takes his notes, makes grunting sounds at her when she finds something fascinating under the microscopes, and has a habit of shouldering her out of the way to glimpse the specimen under the microscopes as soon as she says she's found it. The only time he speaks is when he announces it's time for them to leave for the day.

No one ever talks about Dr. Tully. Which, apparently, is a normal occurrence: once an employee disappears, no one ever speaks of them again.

At times like this, when she looks over her shoulder to see what the fifty-something-year-old man with the crooked glasses trying to weaponize revolutionary science today, she'll be disappointed to see an empty desk and station, the surface covered with a thick layer of dust.

The head of security seems to have taken an interest in her—one that might have her cover blown. She's always skulking about, appearing out of nowhere like, like some _spy_—

The woman is absolutely bothersome, trouble personified. She's going to be the reason Jemma gets caught if she keeps this up.

* * *

><p>Another month passes, and there's been an unfortunate development concerning the head of security.<p>

The woman has begun asking her _questions_.

And not the kind Ward asked, _god_ no—it's the kind that Fitz would ask, if he'd chosen biochemistry as his field of expertise.

They are, as Skye would have dubbed them, science questions. Questions about cellular regeneration, emergency medical kits that they've been having her design so when one of their men get shot they can patch him up straight away, and sometimes they move onto something more complex, the kinds of questions Jemma can easily answer without needing to lie.

When the woman leaves Jemma's station, Jemma's left ducking her head, biting her lip to keep the smile from her face while inwardly cursing at herself.

The woman is _terrifying_ and not at all _good_—

But at the same time—

Soon, the random security checks aren't exactly _security checks_. Eventually, they become visits, or something. Even though there's always this glint in her eyes—suspicious and suspecting, _always_ making Jemma's heart leap into her throat as soon as she spots it—she asks questions not even Fitz would ask her when they've found something extraordinary and wonderful—

No, no, _no_.

Jemma has to tell herself _no_ every time the nameless woman leaves her at her station, heart aflutter in her chest, lips threating to tug upwards in a smile—

Oh, no.

Oh no, oh no, _oh god_.

* * *

><p>Jemma hates this mission. The first one Coulson assigns her, and she has to go and—and—<p>

Maddening. That's what this whole thing is. _Maddening_.

* * *

><p>It's in November when the whole—bloody <em>thing<em>—becomes a problem.

She begins to _stumble_ over her own _words_.

When the head of security is standing behind her, peering over her shoulder, asking about the progress on a human cell's ability to replicate itself without the use of multiple injections from a toxin with a name that would have Skye covering her ears, and Jemma answers, the answer comes out muddled and barely coherent.

She has to repeat herself, after clearing her throat twice. Her cheeks burn as she keeps her eyes glued to the notes she's jotting down. She begins to prattle on about, well, _something_ until the head of security excuses herself because apparently she does not have _time_ to _waste_ talking to a _sub-level one scientist_ or something or another.

That's _fine_.

Jemma couldn't care less.

* * *

><p>This continues on as the weeks go by, and December is upon her before she can blink.<p>

At this point, even some of her coworkers are beginning to notice. Some of them have even begun to _smirk_ and laugh behind their hands once the tall, looming woman is well out of earshot, but all that matters is getting whatever information she can to Coulson in the most discreet way possible. That's what she keeps telling herself. As long as her cover is maintained, and she is not found out, she'll be fine.

Well—

That was before the mistletoe showed up one particularly icy Thursday morning. Directly above her lab station.

When she arrives, everyone laughs. _Everyone_.

It's mortifying, and she _hates _it, hates how her cheeks flush red and that she is undercover and _why _couldn't she be back in the lab and _why _did it have to be her and why oh _why_ did this have to happen to her?

She turns to face one Dr. Hoffman, whom she deems responsible for the way he's doubled over laughing and pointing at her in a way that comically conveys _oh my God_.

"You're so screwed," someone down the aisle from her crows. Her cheeks are cherry red and on _fire_.

But before she can open her mouth and tell them, _this is the silliest thing anyone's ever done_, they can hear someone clearing their throat, and the laughter abruptly stops.

They all straighten up and turn towards the exit—

The head of security is standing there, with her arms crossed over her chest. But instead of the usually narrowed-eye look, there's something else, something like a smile curling her glossed lips.

Jemma wants to hide under a rock for the rest of her life because _this was not a part of the plan _and _why why why did this happen—_

Somewhere above them, there's an explosion—an explosion that has her swaying on her feet, trying to find something to steady herself on. People are shouting, shouting orders and she knows, she _knows_ what's going on.

Jemma takes one last look at the woman with her heart stuck in her throat—preventing her from being able to breathe—before she spins on her heel, and runs.

She does not look back.

* * *

><p>May meets her in the hallway.<p>

She is led down the hall, up the stairwell, and, with only a minor graze from a gunshot on her left shoulder, Jemma Simmons successfully makes it out of the HYDRA facility alive via jumping off of the rooftop.

She embraces Trip and Skye as soon as she sees them. She nearly falls over in her attempts to get to Fitz to give him a crushing hug as fast as she can. She immediately begins to babble about how dreadful that place had been, with its horrible ways about disappearing employees, hierarchy, frightening superiors, maddening, absolutely _maddening _heads of security—

Skye starts laughing, and then Jemma's cheeks begin to burn, but no one else asks her about anything. They're just glad she's back.

When she gets the chance to, when she's back at the base, she goes straight to Coulson with the last of the intel she managed to grab the day before.

Before she leaves, she asks him if he can identify a HYDRA operative for her.

He gladly does, with a slight frown on his face, but when she only nods and gives him a smile, he seems to relax and sends her down to the lab.

* * *

><p>The woman's name was Bobbi Morse. An ex-agent of SHIELD. A traitor, as matter of fact.<p>

Jemma tries her best, her very, _very_ best, not to think about it, about any of it. Because when she pictures dark hair, sharp eyes, a glossy smile, and a voice that's like music to her ears, a voice she could close her eyes and fall asleep to if she had the chance to—

Skye laughs at her for _days, _once she's confirmed what Jemma hasn't been saying. She's sympathetic, but not nearly enough for this not to be funny for her. And for Trip, too, when Skye finally explains what's got her laughing so hard her sides hurt—_she had a crush, Trip, Simmons actually had a crush, and apparently there was mistletoe__— _

* * *

><p>From time to time, Jemma will remember the woman—<em>Bobbi, her name is Bobbi Morse<em>—and her cheeks will begin to burn, and she will duck her head in hopes that nobody can see her cringe. She will remember the way her hand brushed against her own and how she always leaned in _close_ when she was looking over her shoulder—

The memory burns her from the inside out. She wants nothing more than to push it down, down, down, until it's just a name, and a face; facts, all of it, nothing but technical details—

* * *

><p>But then Skye will come back from an assignment three weeks late, sporting bruises all over from a fall she took while jumping off a moving vehicle, <em>apparently<em>, —she will give Jemma a thumbs-up and say, with a lopsided grin, "Bobbi says hi."

And—

Her cheeks will _burn_.


End file.
